Irrevocable Upgrade -- SBR: Nova*Beacon

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Date Posted: 11:54:31 08/23/01 Thu
Author: NOVA*Beacon
Subject: Irrevocable Upgrade
In reply to: Dark Star 's message, "Dark Star took a deep breath and followed the Map." on 13:31:34 08/21/01 Tue

The panel which had opened when Darkstar placed her hand over the indicated symbol now closed, leaving her alone in total darkness. She could hear the hum of machinery all around but saw nothing.

"DARKSTAR."

The voice was deafening and harmonic, as though hundreds of voices were speaking her name in unison. Anyone outside the concealed chamber would surely hear the vessel speaking in its more familiar overwhelming volume...if it was speaking aloud. Darkstar soon realized that was NOT the case. If speaking with the ship's "brain" had been a marvel, it paled next to communing with its "soul." It was still spark-to-spark communication...only the unispark of the NOVA*Beacon had to literally be right under her feet to impact so powerfully.

No sooner did this realization dawn than a thin sliver of light appeared on the ground beneath her, widening into a gaping maw. To her surprise, she did not fall as the ground slid away from below; rather, that which dwelled beneath rose up to meet her.

The unispark engulfed her, took her within itself. What seemed like one shimmering spark from without was a collection of intermingled sparks. Like water molecules, separate but together, they occupied every part of the Unispark always touching, always connected, flowing around Darkstar as she intercepted their flow. She looked to her left and saw an ethereal Death Stalker mocking her, hovering like some spirit but tethered to her by glowing filaments like some macabre marionette. She turned away and saw a similarly transparent Northstar smiling at her, equally bound. Her optics followed the trail of energy from each back to her core, where her own spark was pulsating and glowing through her hull. The NOVA*Beacon spoke...or perhaps more accurately conveyedto Darkstar.

"SEMI-DISTINCT HALVES OF A WHOLE, AS WE THOUGHT. WE COULD SEVER THE TIES WHICH BIND THE ONE, BUT NOT WITHOUT IRREVOCABLY HARMING THE ONE...OR THE WHOLE. YOU ARE ALL DARKSTAR, JUST AS WE ARE ALL NOVA*BEACON. BUT ONCE WE HAVE MINGLED, WE WILL BOTH BE SO MUCH MORE. PERHAPS THEN WHERE SEPARATION IS BEYOND US, MEDIATION WOULD NOT.

WE EMBRACE YOU ALL."

The sparks which up until now had moved to accommodate the Decepticon now flowed into and through her. She saw peripherally great horror on Deathstalker's face-image and great joy on that of Northstar's. Then the light became blinding. Lithone, Cybertron, Earth, Junkion, Hydrus IV, Charr, Nebulos--dozens of worlds raced passed and overlapped. Cities, towns, military bases, fields--every possible environment from every memory the NOVA*Beacon possessed. Hundreds of lives in an instant, each ending on the same....

"ARISE, HERALD! LOOK OUT YOUR OPTICS FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH A SHARED VIEWPOINT."

Darkstar hadn't even realized that her optics had closed instinctively, even though the blinding onrush of data was not visual input. Eyes can be closed; a mind is trickier. She looked about the room now, noting that it had been illuminated. Before her were rows and rows of cold, metallic slabs. Tables with discarded laser saws she saw upon closer inspection. And the inert, hanging robotic arms?

She knew at once what this place was, the chamber where all the memories she had glimpsed had a common endpoint. The main lab of the TLA Chief Dismantler Karix, where the victims were slowly studied and dissected, their parts examined before being incorporated into the ship. For the early victims, before Karix and his team had learned more about sentient mechs, whom they scornfully dubbed "anomalies", death was instantaneous. But over time the experiments progressed, and new victims were kept online for much longer before their power faded and their spark simply drifted.

The Beacon had not spoken into her mind this time. Nor had she possessed the knowledge that now came to her. She merely wondered, and the answers came to her subconscious. The first benefit of being a Heraldmaster was discovered; wherever she journeyed the Beacon would be with her. It would be there to answer her questions, either "aloud" or by simply sorting through the data of its shared lifetimes to find the memory which would serve her, even as her experiences from now on would be part of the Beacon's. As the lights illuminating the tables closed once more, she knew now why this place was kept hidden from even its new crew: it was both a painful reminder and an honered shrine. Light flooded the darkened chamber from across the room, and the way out was once more revealed.

"she can...
remember a time denied, stood by...
the side of the road, spilled like wine, now....
she's out on the road & line high....

there's...
no leaving here....
ask, I'm an ear....
she's disappeared..."
-Pearl Jam, 'MFC', 'Yield', 1998

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Replies:

Dark Star walked out of the room and fainted. -- Dark Star, 11:29:44 08/27/01 Mon
- "I can't believe he shockin' ran off..." -- Ebonhawk, 21:37:23 08/27/01 Mon
  - "Tell me what Ebonhawk? Where's your partner?" -- Dark Star, 15:49:30 04/14/02 Sun